1. Field of the Invention
The present invention relates to data and telecommunications networks, and, in particular, to protection switching for such networks.
2. Description of the Related Art
The traditional approach for N+1 protection switching in a data or telecommunications network is achieved using a switching matrix that is agnostic to the type of connection being routed, and the protection switch is accomplished by reloading the switching matrix via direct writes to the controlling registers. Modern communication devices are typically processor based and rely on a command/response handshake to set up each connection. The command/response handshake dictates a serial process for setting up multiple connections and does not lend itself well to protection-switching applications where the timing requirements for the protection switch are typically of the order of tens of milliseconds. A conventional serial command/response method for protection switching would involve sending several hundred commands, which would take on the order of seconds to execute, a far greater time than is acceptable for a protection switch.